Chapter Text
“All great beginnings start in the dark, when the moon greets you to a new day at midnight.” - Shannon L. Alder
Standing in the small crowd of arrivals from Seattle to Port Angeles, Emily almost didn’t recognize her father; Jason Gideon was shorter than she remembered, his hairline receding, his face lined. Becoming a small-town sheriff was supposed to be his retirement, and yet it seemed like it had been even less kind to him than his time working for the FBI.
Still, judging by the split-second glint of surprise in his eyes and the way he raised his eyebrow, Gideon hadn’t been expecting her to look the way she did, either. Emily couldn’t help smiling at this as she approached him - she reveled in challenging every expectation people had when meeting the Ambassador’s daughter.
“It’s good to see you, Em,” he said, as she came to a stop in front of him.
“You too.”
They both stood there opposite each other for a moment, unsure of what to do. Clearly, neither of them wanted to hug, like so many of the people around them were.
What did you say to a father you’d never really known?
He reached over, pulling her duffel bag out of her hand. “Do you have any other bags you need to collect?”
Emily shook her head. “Nope.” She gestured to the duffel bag, and her suitcase, which she was still holding. “This is it.”
Gideon frowned. “Did you decide to leave your things behind in Italy?”
“Some of my clothes,” Emily offered. “Since the weather’s so different there, a lot of them were just too thin for me to ever realistically wear them here. But I don’t have a lot of stuff in general - we’ve always moved around too much for me to amass much.”
This was the main reason for her return to America, for moving to this drab town in the middle of nowhere. She wanted to live in a normal house and go to a normal school like a normal teenager. The Ambassador announcing that they were moving from Italy to Russia over Christmas had been the final straw; if she was going to have to move away from John and Matthew, and the life she’d formed in Rome over the last four years, it was not going to be with her mother, and it was not going to be to Russia.
She hadn’t thought of Gideon in years; the Ambassador liked to pretend that Emily’s father didn’t exist. Now, he was her chance at finally settling down somewhere she could call home.
“There are some shops here in Port Angeles,” Gideon said, as he led her out to his cruiser in the parking lot and loaded her bags into the trunk. “You can come back one weekend and buy some more clothes.”
“Sounds great,” Emily replied, without much enthusiasm. Shopping had never really been her thing - even less so now that she wouldn’t be searching for whatever item of clothing was most likely to piss off her mother.
The hour-long drive down to Forks was quiet, except for the soft rumble of music on the radio and the patter of rain against the windows. Gideon seemed content with not making any conversation, which she appreciated - maybe it was something she’d inherited from him.
Emily rested her head against the window, watching grey Port Angeles gradually blur into dense forest, a thick leafy canopy forming over them and filtering even the air green.
Gideon’s house was on the outskirts of the forest, a neat two-story building with a red front door. It was easily distinguished from the other houses on the street by its garden, which was lush with tall grass and colorful flowers.
“I didn’t know you gardened!” Emily said, hopping out of the car to admire it all more closely. She didn’t know much about plants, but this was clearly a labor of love, something he’d dedicated a lot of time to.
Gideon shrugged. “Forks doesn’t get a lot of crime. I picked it up as a hobby - the birds like it.”
He walked around to the driveway, where a faded red truck with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab stood, and slapped it on the roof. “This is yours.”
Emily stared at the truck, trying to think of an appropriate response.
She couldn’t drive - couldn’t drive a Vespa, let alone this kind of behemoth.
But it was a sweet gesture, and she didn’t want Gideon to read the disappointment on her face, so she walked over and wrapped her arms around him. It was one of the stiffest hugs she’d ever had - and she’d hugged the Ambassador before.
“Thank you,” she said, as they parted, hoping that the hug was awkward enough to prevent him from using his FBI superpowers to find out she was lying.
He only nodded in reply, then busied himself with grabbing her bags, so it seemed that she’d been successful.
Inside, the house was cozy; warmly-lit, with dark wood furniture, and shelves of books lining the walls. There were several pictures of birds hung around, and even - surprisingly - a few of Emily. Emily as a baby, with only a few dark wisps of hair, drooling around her tiny fist. Emily, seven years old and gap-toothed, in a school picture. Emily, twelve years old and scowling, dressed in some poofy dress for a gala.
She wondered who’d sent him all these pictures. Certainly, it hadn’t been the Ambassador. Even if she kept in touch with Gideon - which Emily doubted - she wouldn’t have selected most of these; they were too imperfect.
“Your room’s upstairs,” Gideon said, walking past. He led her up to a small room on the right of the stairs and set her bags down there.
It didn’t match the rest of the house; it had fairy-patterned wallpaper, white furniture - including a rocking chair, tucked into the corner - and a dusty rose rug. Was this his idea of what teenage girls liked?
“I swapped out the crib for a bed,” Gideon explained, “but otherwise, it’s exactly how you left it the last time you were here.”
Well, that explained it.
“Feel free to redecorate,” he added, hastily. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, figured it was best left to you.”
Emily felt a pang of guilt.
Here he was: her father. Trying so hard to please her. He hadn’t seen her or heard from her in over ten years, and yet her pictures were on his walls and her childhood bedroom was untouched. He’d even bought her a car. Meanwhile, she’d barely thought of him in all that time, had only chosen to see him again for the convenience of living in the States.
“It’s really nice,” she reassured him. “I’m glad you kept all this, instead of turning it into, like, an office or something.”
“Well, I didn’t need an office,” Gideon said. “I’ll leave you to, uh, unpack.”
There were still baby clothes in her chest of drawers - tiny mittens and booties, onesies patterned with unicorns and daisies, a little yellow raincoat with a matching hat. She emptied them all out into a heap on the floor, then split the clothes from her duffel bag amongst all the drawers.
She pulled the posters out of her suitcase, but kept them rolled up - she’d wait until she’d repainted the walls before she put them up. Her collection of Docs was shoved under the bed. She lined her books up along the windowsill at first, then quickly realized that they’d get water damaged in a matter of days, and piled them up on her bedside table, next to a framed picture of her with John and Matthew.
Overall, the unpacking process didn’t take long. Once she was finished, Emily kicked off her boots and flopped onto the bed, thinking of all the things she’d need to change. She needed more shelves, a wardrobe, a mirror…
When she woke up the next morning, it was raining. Emily wandered over to the window. She had a view of the front yard, including the garden, but it was barely visible over the heavy fog.
She showered and got dressed, choosing to tone down the goth-inspired look she’d adopted over the past couple of years - she was going to get stared at enough as just the new kid and the sheriff’s daughter - and even going as far as to pull on a pair of jeans.
By the time she came downstairs, Gideon was setting a plate of food for her down at the table. It was piled high with scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, and toast.
“You fell asleep before dinner yesterday, so I figured you’d be extra hungry,” he explained, as he pulled on his gun belt and hat. “My shift’s about to start - make sure you get to school on time. Have a good first day.”
He left before Emily could thank him for making breakfast. It was heavier than anything she was used to eating so early in the day, but so mouth-wateringly good that she didn’t mind.
The downside to Gideon leaving before her was that she couldn’t ask for a ride to school and make up some lie about not being used to driving in the rain. She’d have to walk. Emily pulled up Google maps and sighed: forty-five minutes on foot.
Her coat, which had gotten her through winter in Italy, was no match for the rain in Forks. She was soaked through almost instantly.
By the time Emily trudged miserably onto the grounds of Forks High School, first period had already begun. A red-haired woman behind the desk in the front office clucked disapprovingly at the state of her, then passed Emily a map and a slip to have each teacher to sign, before sending her off to her first class: English with Mr. Walker in building three.
Building three was easy to spot, a large black ‘3’ painted on a white square on the east corner. When Emily walked in, the entire class turned around to stare at her. She ignored them, walking up to the front and handing Walker the slip. Luckily, he didn’t comment on her tardiness or make her introduce herself to the class, just gave her a reading list and sent her to a desk at the back.
The reading list was pretty basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. Emily had already read most of them, and the rest wouldn’t be hard to get through.
The girl next to Emily leaned over, whispering, “Hi, I’m Penelope. You’re new, right?”
Penelope had curly blonde hair, arranged carefully around a headband featuring a large flower, and a bright blue pair of glasses, which matched the top she was wearing. At a quick glance around the class, Emily could tell that Penelope stuck out the most of anyone there, except for maybe her.
She nodded, whispering back. “I’m Emily.”
“You’re very wet, Emily.”
Emily bit back a dirty joke that John would have appreciated and shrugged. “I walked here.”
Penelope raised her eyebrows. “Interesting choice. They keep the school pretty warm here, so I’m sure your clothes will dry, but I have some makeup in my bag if you want to fix yours in the bathroom after class.”
Emily groaned, a little too loudly - a couple of people turned around to look at her again. She’d forgotten all about her makeup; there was no way her heavy eyeliner had withstood the weather.
“Yes, please. I hadn’t even realized what the rain here was going to do to my makeup. God, thanks for telling me - I probably would have walked around like this all day like some kind of idiot.”
Penelope smiled. “No worries. I know what it’s like to be new - I moved here from New Mexico when I was twelve. All that rain can be a culture shock.”
In a school as tiny as Forks High, with just over three hundred students, most of Emily’s classes were with the same people, which meant that she sat next to Penelope in every lesson except Trig that day, and they walked down to the cafeteria for lunch together after Spanish - yet another subject Emily could fly through easily, considering she was fluent in the language.
They sat down at the end of a full table, where Penelope introduced Emily to her friends - Matt, Luke, Kevin, Grant, Tara, and Kate. They were all fairly nice, and Emily liked them well enough - especially Tara, who had a similar sense of humor.
She found herself having the same conversation she was sure she’d be having with people for the next several weeks. Yes, she was Sheriff Gideon’s daughter. Yes, she’d moved here from Italy. Yes, she could speak Italian. No, they didn’t eat pasta and pizza every day over there, but the pasta and pizza were exceptionally delicious…
It was there, sitting in the lunchroom and talking to these seven curious new acquaintances, that she first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from any other students as they could get. There were four of them - three boys and one girl. There were full trays of food in front of them, but none of them were eating. They weren’t gawking at Emily, like a lot of the other students in the room - they were leaning in closely towards each other, as if whatever they were talking about was highly confidential.
They didn’t look anything alike. Of the three boys, one was tall and lean, with dark hair and a serious expression. Another was black, shorter and more muscular, with a chiseled face. The last was gangly and boyish, with floppy brown hair that kept getting in his eyes - he seemed much younger than any of the others. The girl was the opposite of the boys, blonde and blue-eyed, with delicate features.
And yet, they were all exactly alike. They all had sickly complexions. Even in a town like Forks, where everybody was pale and nobody got enough sun, the white ones were easily the palest in the entire room. They also had dark shadows under their eyes - purplish, bruise-like shadows. As if they were all suffering from multiple sleepless nights, or almost done recovering from a broken nose. Though their noses, all their features, seemed perfect and angular.
But none of those things were the reason Emily couldn’t look away.
She was staring because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the face of an angel.
It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful, although as a lesbian, Emily was biased towards thinking it was the girl.
Penelope followed Emily’s gaze across the room. “Ah, those are the Rossis,” she said knowingly.
There was a chorus of groaning around the table, as though this was a topic everyone was deeply sick of. “Please, don’t get Pen started about the Rossis,” Luke begged.
Emily was far too enthralled by the four gorgeous strangers to listen to him. “Who are the Rossis?”
The girl lifted her head, looking directly at them - her eyes flickering from Penelope to Emily. It was an uninterested glance, as if somebody had called her name and she’d looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to answer.
All the same, Emily blushed and looked down at the table, embarrassed by being caught staring at a pretty girl.
Penelope looked down at the table too, and explained in a hushed, conspiratorial voice. “They’re all David Rossi’s children - well, adopted children. None of them actually go by Rossi. The tall, gloomy one is Aaron Hotchner. The hot stud is Derek Morgan. The baby-faced one is Spencer Reid, and the girl is Jennifer Jareau.”
Emily sneaked another look at the Rossis. One of the boys - Morgan - was laughing at something, and his brother - Reid - was pouting, as though he was the butt of the joke.
“Mr. Rossi is a historian,” Penelope continued, “and he’s made a fortune by writing all these books set in different time periods. They live in this huge house somewhere in the forest and hardly ever go into town. They barely talk to anyone who’s not in their family too - it’s super weird and culty.”
Again, Emily’s eyes wandered over to the family. Other than their unnatural looks, there didn’t seem to be anything overly cult-like about them. All of them except Reid, who was wearing a sweater vest and tie, were dressed casually in things like jeans and sneakers. Morgan had his arm flung over Reid, and Jareau’s feet were propped up on the seat opposite her. She couldn’t imagine them dressed in robes and sacrificing a lamb over a drawing of a pentagram.
“Have they always lived here?”
“They moved down here two years ago from someplace in Alaska. Supposedly.” Penelope’s tone suggested that she didn’t find this believable, although growing up in Alaska could have explained at least their complexions.
Emily felt a surge of pity for the Rossis. It was already hard enough moving to somewhere new - a tiny town where everybody already knew each other. It must have been harder still as such an obvious outsider, someone who looked so different, lived so far away from all the other teenagers in the area. She was willing to bet that there weren’t any other adopted or foster kids in Forks either, and that potentially came with some stigma from the locals too.
She’d been here five minutes and was surrounded by potential friends. The Rossis had been here two years and were still so isolated.
The girl met Emily’s gaze again, this time with evident curiosity in her expression. And Emily was captivated, couldn’t bring herself to look away.